Parmenides, as one of the oldest of the Hellenic philosophers, is also interesting in that he is also one of the most modern. His teachings anticipate much of the metaphysical thought of Sartre and Heidegger, as well as 18th Century philosophers such as Hegel and Schopenhauer.

The principal idea behind his thought is that motion and change as we understand them are in fact an illusion, for change implies that something comes from nothing which, as Parmenides points out is a logical impossibility. Similarly Being is One as it is indivisible, for how can something be divided if not by something and if something is something well then it is and is therefore part of Being. In other words Being can only be divided by itself, which is a nonsense.

Much of what is startling in Parmenides is taken up and "proven" by his pupil, Zeno. Famous for his paradoxes, Zeno's general line can be illustrated by his example of the archer. If an archer fires an arrow into the air, that arrow in order to get from a to b, must pass through a midpoint between these two points, but to get to this midpoint it must travel through a midpoint between that midpoint and a, and likewise through a midpoint between those two points and so on ad infinitum. If then an arrow is to get anywhere it must go through an infinite number of points which should mean the arrow can never reach its target; ergo motion is impossible.